The 13 men and one woman on trial

12:01AM BST 27 Apr 2002

Paul Coppin, 46, of Mildenhall, Suffolk, is the director of Touchdown Tours, which organised the ill-fated week-long trip to Greek airfields. Known for taking risks in his quest for military aircraft serial numbers, it was his activities that aroused the Greek authorities' suspicions. He has visited Turkey at the request of the air force and was detained last year in Romania after getting too close to an airbase.

Lesley Coppin, 53, a grandmother and the only woman in the group, had gone to Greece with her husband of only 11 months for what she thought would be a belated honeymoon. She does not share his passion for plane spotting, and was completing a crossword in the party's minibus when she was arrested. She was said to have suffered weight loss and asthma attacks while detained separately in a women's prison for six weeks.

Steven Rush, 38, a golf course green keeper from Caterham, Surrey, captured the headlines last December when he was reunited with his three-year-old daughter, Isla, and girlfriend, Jennifer Childs. While in prison for pursuing a "safe hobby", Mr Rush said he was able to keep track of his other love, Chelsea Football Club, thanks to English newspapers delivered to the group in jail. A lighter moment for him was watching a Chelsea match in an Albanian man's cell, who was serving 16 years for murdering someone with a Kalashnikov.

Antoni Adamiak, 37, a divorced bank computer expert from London, also said it was his love for Chelsea Football Club that boosted his spirits in prison. Yesterday, he said the only consolation was that he would now be able to see Chelsea play Arsenal in the FA Cup final next weekend.

Peter Norris, 52, of Uxbridge, west London, works for an air freight company. An avid plane spotter since he was a child, he is married and has three sons, two daughters and eight grandchildren. Despite the ordeal, he has no plans to give up his hobby.

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Michael Bursell, 47, a British Telecom manager from Hull, is married with two daughters. A former employee of the aeronautics company BAe, he has written a number of aviation pamphlets and a book about crashed aircraft in Europe.